Timeline?

[Argent]

You mentioned HWO being a combination of time- and turn-based. How exactly does time pass in this game? Are there seasons?

Infinite questions

[larissar]

We don't have seasons right now although the possibility is there. We DO have different times of day though.

Each player starts their virtual day at 6am and you have until 10pm when your day ends. Everything you do in the game costs you time. So if you have a lot of horses you are training you might find you run out of time pretty quickly. When that happens you can hire another trainer to help you out. Once you've reach the end of your day, or once you've done all the things you want to do that day, then you go to sleep and begin your next day. You have a limited numbers of virtual days you can use. You earn a new day approximately every 30 minutes and free accounts can bank up to 10 days. Once you use up those 10 days you have to wait another 30 minutes before you can advance to the next day.

Horses will age by 1 month every virtual day so it will take 12 days to age your horse one full year.

[Argent]

So does breeding currently take place whenever?
Does time of day affect anything?
If I'm understanding this correctly, one virtual day per 30min would be 48 virtual days in one real day? Which means, in theory, you could age a horse four years each real day.
How long do horses live? Do they peak and decline at certain ages, as far as fertility and competition performance are concerned?

[larissar]

Mares can foal at any time of day.
The time of day itself currently doesn't have any particular effect in the game although I have been considering adding in some effects. That is something we'll have to put into play testing to make any decisions.

Yes in theory you could age your horse 4 years in one real day if you played all day long. Horses will live to between 25 and 30 years old although in old age they are pretty limited to what they can do. Age does have an effect on fertility and also competition potential.

[Argent]

Will we be able to breed for longevity in performance? For example, Lipizzans are ridden at the SRS into their twenties, while TBs might be considered more likely to break down at a younger age.
And will we be able to breed for slow or fast maturing horses?

[larissar]

Longevity would be a result of a combination of factors including the job they have to do, and their overall soundness. I haven't specifically added in any sort of longevity gene but you can certainly breed for the traits that would help improve a horses overall soundness and train them in such a way that you aren't as likely to cause injury. Over-training when a horse is unfit/young would be one way to reduce his longevity which could explain with TBs breakdown more easily/often than an aged horse doing dressage, who would likely have taken a longtime time to reach his peak fitness.

When you ask if you can breed for fast or slow maturity what specifically do you mean? Horses will grow into their adult size at relatively similar rates. Some colour effects like the Grey gene will certainly have variable progress rates. Some horses will go grey faster than others.

[Argent]

Similar to the issue with longevity: would we be able to breed horses that were "mature" at an older age, like warmbloods and Iberians being considered old enough for training at about four, or those that "mature" at a younger age, like TBs and QHs being considered old enough for training at two or younger. I'm aware that the practice of training horses so young leads to their premature breakdown, but I believe there are in fact horses who need more time before they can be expected to start work.

[larissar]

I understand what you are asking. I hadn't considered that but actually it would be a very simple thing to include in the game. I'll try it out in game testing and see if it works well with our current training system. Thank you.

[Argent]

I'm pleased you found something I said useful

I'm curious how this would affect registry inspections -- in theory, if the horse wasn't physically mature until 4, you wouldn't get an accurate analysis until around that age. Early inspections would be a great guide, but, for example, I've seen real life Lipizzans with vastly different inspection scores from different years. Perhaps there would be something similar to warmblood keurings, where foals that were obviously of good quality would be noted as such, but they would not be approved as breeding stock until they had been evaluated as adults? And there could be performance tests as well, for those who are more concerned with breeding than competing but want others to be aware that their horses could be competitive. On that same tangent, I would love to see all sorts of lovely titles given to superior breeding animals within a studbook/registry.

[Argent]

If I may: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.equinestudies.org%2Franger_2008%2Franger_piece_2008_pdf1.pdf

I was wrong about the different maturation rates, but the link above offers some good information on the topic of physical maturity.